Chapter 9

The first period finished and I quickly left the classroom to meet Jeremy and Mia before the second period would start. I got to the lockers to put the book in my locker. Next period was Physical Education. Mia and Jeremy would be there.

I went to the locker-room to put on my sport clothes. I met Mia there. We got ready and went to the field. Mr. Peters said that we should start running. I haven’t seen Jeremy anywhere.

“Where is Jeremy?” I whispered to Mia. She shrugged and we continued running.

“What happened? Are you keeping something from me?” she asked suspiciously.

 “No! Relax, we aren’t keeping anything from you. I’m just...curious!” I said with a soft smile.

She looked at me and turned around. I sighed. Thank God, she didn’t start interrogating.

“Hey, Walker!” Raf suddenly came out from nowhere and screamed.

 “Hi,” I said matter-of-factly.

 “How are you?” he asked me.

“You are asking me this question for the second time and nothing has changed,” I stated with hope that this conversation would finish.

 “Yeah!” he said.

“King, stop talking!” Coach Peters yelled.

 “Nah!” he yelled back.

“What did you say?” teacher asked with annoyance in his tone.

 “Coach Peters, come on. Don’t be a buzzkill!”  he said, giggling.

“The conversation with you doesn’t have any sense,” teacher rolled his eyes.

 “I love you too, Coach Peters!” Raf laughed.

 I wanted to keep my face straight, but I couldn’t, because he was very funny, that’s why I started laughing. He looked at me with an amusing smile.

“What?” I asked and smiled.

 “You are cute when you are laughing,” he said and ran further.

After the second period we had lunch. I sat near Jeremy. Mia was still changing.

“Where have you been?” I asked, distressed.

“I didn’t feel good, so I decided not to aattend this lesson.”

“Is everythong alright?” I asked.

“Now, everything is fine. Don’t worry!” he said, lifting up a corner of his smile.

 Later, Mia came. Then I saw Dylan, Lincoln and Raf entering the cafeteria. Charlotte suddenly came closer to Raf and kissed him. He kissed her back as he grabbed her waist.

I turned around and continued eating calmly. Suddenly I saw Dylan, Lincoln and Raf sitting with us. Raf was near me. Lincoln and Dylan sat near Mia. They started talking, Jeremy and I were silently eating and sometimes looking at each other. I noticed that Raf was looking at me from times to times. But I avoided his eye contacts.

“By the way, are you coming to Gill’s party?” Mia asked excitedly.

 “We are in!” Dylan said, mentioning also Lincoln and Raf.

 “And you, guys?” Mia asked me and Jeremy.

 “I will be there!” Jeremy said.

 I looked at him, confusingly. Mia looked at me with a begging look.

“I guess, I will come too,” I said with a soft smile.

 “Yaay!” Mia said.

The rest of the lessons were as always boring and I wanted to go home as soon as possible.

I was home and I decided to watch old DVDs of my family. There was a video from our birthday.

My dad was filming it.

“Happy Birthday, dear Kylie!” he woke me up. It was my and Lincoln’s 8th birthday.

“Hey, Daddy!” I yelled.

“Get up! Let’s congratulate your brother too!”

I quickly got off my bed and took my dad’s hand. I was wearing my violet pajamas with pink clouds. I had loved that pajama. I still had it somewhere in my old clothes.

We went to Lincoln’s room.

“Linc, happy birthday!” I exclaimed and jumped on him.

He woke up and threw me off the bed.

I laughed, while watching this moment

 “Ouch!” I said while Lincoln was laughing.

“Happy Birthday, dear Linc!” my dad said.

 Linc got up from the bed and took my dad’s hand. I ran to them but I couldn’t hold my dad’s hand as he was holding a camera in the other hand.

Then there was my mom in the kitchen, putting candles on our cake. We ran to mom.

“Mommy!” we screamed.

 She had a big smile plastered on her face and she took the cake and started singing with my dad.

“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Kylie and Linc! Happy Birthday to you!”

And we blew off the candles. Mom started clapping hands. Lincoln and I started jumping from happiness.

Suddenly, my phone started ringing. It was Lincoln.

 “Yeah?” I accepted the call.

“Ky, I will see you at the party. Raf will take you there, I can’t come home yet!” he answered.

 “No, I will go on my own” I said.

 “Come on! It will be dark outside. I won’t allow you to go alone!” he said and hung up.

 Amazing. I guess, I should get ready.

I opened the closet to choose what to wear. I didn’t know what to wear. Of course, as always I was thinking about wearing a pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt. But a weird hunch got into my head.

Once in the lifetime I thought about how it was like to be a sight for sore eyes? How does it feel to make everyone’s jaw drop? How does it feel to know that every girl is jealous of you and all the boys want only you? How does it feel to be actually beautiful? My mom was always the beauty standard. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I’ve always wanted to be like her, but unfortunately, it hasn’t happened. I thought about my mom’s closet. It hasn’t been opened since...ouch...

I came in to my father’s room, which was earlier my parent’s room. Suddenly all the memories came back like a quick flashback. I always thought about how powerful are memories. They can call any emotion any minute. They can make you cry, get in depression and just make your heart ache. But the other side can make you smile, raise your mood and make you feel grateful for every single thing that you have. This time memories nearly killed me, because suddenly I forgot how to breath and I let out the breathe that I didn’t know I was holding. I closed my eyes for a second to calm down but more flashbacks started haunting my mind. In the end, I screamed...

I calmed down and started thinking about why I came here. Honestly, I didn’t think that there still would be something which would remind me of my mom. But no. There was every detail which had been before the tragedy happened. Everything still was as usually at their places. The old cup which was given from my Granny to my parents was on the chest of drawers. The black pen with the pink note book were on the chest drawers from the other side of the bad. Mom always put them there, because she liked noting everything, but my dad vice versa always remembered everything. However he still left them there.

I came to the closet, hopeless. Because I would completely understand if my dad put old clothes somewhere in the other place. But it would be still heartbreaking...

Finally, I opened it and I saw my mom’s clothes there. Every skirt, every blouse, every pair of trousers, everything was there. I noticed my mom’s favorite blouse. She said that it was her favorite because dad had given it to her at their first wedding anniversary. It showed her that he truly cared about her and would have done everything for her. I took it closer to me to catch its scent. It smelled like my mom had always smelled. Classic, official and delicate. Her favourite. I felt a tear rolling down my cheek. But I had a child’s smile on my face. I imagined my mom sitting near me with her hands wrapping me and her warm lips kissing my forehead... I put the blouse back and dried my eyes.

I saw that there was a red skirt and black top with a pair of tights. Also I found a leather jacket. It would be strange for me to wear something like that. But everything changes, right? My mom had always bought me girly things, while I had never worn them. I just gave everything to the orphanage. And now I regreted giving everything that connected me with my mom. She had always wanted me to look perfectly. But even when I wore awful, tasteless clothes she still called me the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. I think, she would have been happy to see me here wearing such girly clothes.

I still had 2 hours until the party, so I decided to change something too. I found my lenses, so I took off my glasses and started practicing how to wear them on.

I did it! It was difficult, my eyes hurt, but I did it! I looked at the mirror and saw that I looked completely different. I took my bag, which Mia gave me on my 16th birthday. I also wanted to change my hairstyle, so I just made two braids which started from the top of my head and intertwined with the rest of the hair.

I also wanted to put on some make up. I put some lip gloss on my lips and put some mascara on.

The last thing was shoes? I found a pair of boots and decided to wear them. Now, I was ready!

I got the text from Raf saying that he was waiting for me outside. I sighed.

“Now or never...” I said out loud, looking at myself in the mirror.